A Little Quieter
by trollking01
Summary: The Loud Family just lost one of its members. The Loud Sisters deal with Lincoln's dissappearence in their strange ways
1. Chapter 1

Lori Loud was a simple woman. She wanted her hot coffee on her hand by 6:00 A.M, a nice breakfast by 7 and a goodnight's sleep with her husband after a long day of work. The time in-between breakfast and bedtime was best described as total boredom not worthy of anyone's time.

Still, her day to day life was bearable thanks to the love of her life being by her side. Two years after she left home, she married Bobby Santiago and everything had been perfect ever since. Well, as perfect two 25 five year old working two jobs from 7 to 10, who can barely afford a decent apartment can be. Okay, scratch that it was not perfect but she could live a day at a time with Bobby and that was all she needed.

That day would be different.

She woke up as she always did, with the alarm clock of her phone blasting her favorite song at full volume. She sat up, turning off the alarm. She removed the crust from her eyes and just stared at the wall for a few minutes. It was times like this when she missed her family. Having grown up with the constant chaos of early morning fights, improvised rock concerts or pranks being pulled, the silence her new apartment offered was a little unsettling.

That got her a little nostalgic, remembering the complete anarchy that her home was. Nowadays it must be so much peaceful now, with five of the siblings gone. She moved with Bobby a little after becoming 18, Leni left to make her mark on the fashion world, Luna went on tour with her band, Luan became a hit comedian doing live shows almost daily, Lynn won a sport scholarship to a great university, and Lincoln had left for astronaut school.

Of course, its real name had been Galaxy Garrison but calling it astronaut school is so less silly. I mean for real, was one of the guys in charge of coming up with names been watching Star Travel recently?!

It almost made her laugh, Lincoln the Astronaut. Nobody saw it coming when Lincoln came back from high school with a flyer for Galaxy Garrison. As always, her parents had been very supportive of his choice, as they had of all their children's life choices. After some tearful goodbyes and a ride to the Garrison, Lincoln had gone on to become one of the best pilots they had, eventually landing him a spot in the first manned mission to Pluto. She would be lying if she said she wasn't a little proud.

According to Lincoln he would be back for Christmas and promised to bring back gifts from space. He would probably get some rocks from the road and say they are from Pluto, the cheapstake.

An alarm woke her up from her reminiscence. She took her phone and checked the time: 6:30. She had one more hour to get ready and go to her office.

She got up and went to her small bathroom. A few minutes later she emerged charged and ready to seize the day!

After a small breakfast of course.

As she placed to slices of bread in the toaster, she turned on the little TV they had bought. It was the cheapest model they could afford, but it did its job well and with no complication. Although the occasional cockroach moving across the screen from the inside of the TV.

The TV lit up and she began changing the channels. Commercials for hair products, fast food chains, movies and more flashed through the screen. She finally settled on the News Channels, not that she was very interested in the news, it's just that there were no other good shows right now.

The anchors talked about a variety of topics none of which caught her attention.

"And that's how the cat got reunited with his family, thanks to good Samaritan and pillar of the community Heinz Doofenshmirtz, who is also a doctor" the female news anchor said as the picture of a man with a abnormally large nose handing a cat to a little kid shows up on screen. The very act of doing something good seems to live a bad taste on the man's face.

"A doctor in cuteness I'm sure." The handsome male anchor laughed. He quickly changed to a more serious face "On more somber news, Cerberus-1, the first manned mission to one of Pluto's moon has gone completely silent"

Her toasts jumped out of the toaster, she wasn't hungry anymore.

"Reports say that contact with the ship was lost at midnight last night, but no other reports have come from Galaxy Garrison regarding the faiths of the crew" The female reporter said while a picture of three people came on the screen: gray haired man with a pair of glasses smiling at the camera, a brown haired young man with glasses saluting, and white haired young man giving thumps up at the camera. It was the same picture her parents had put on the trophy case back at home.

"We can only pray for these brave men and hope they come back safe and sound to their families" The male anchor said with a tone of sadness.

She shut off the TV.

Taking her phone she called her boss and asked him to take a few days off and that she'll be back soon, she didn't even give him a chance to answer. She got a bag from the closet and began packing her and Bobbie's stuff. She had already sent him a message explaining what was happening.

Once Bobby came back and both their bags had been filled, they made their way to their childhood home, Royal Woods. Whatever happened to Lincoln it was going affect her family and she had to make sure they are able to handle it. She also hoped to get some answers from Lisa.

Even if her face was that of a young woman with a mission, inside a dreading feeling was beginning to sprout. The feeling that he may never come back home.


	2. Close Encounters

In our current age where information can get to millions of people in the matter of seconds, we have to ask ourselves.

Which bits of information get spread by the public faster than others?

Many of the greatest minds of our generation have come up with various answers: celebrities' birthdays, deaths, dumb animals doing funny things, cats and leaked government information. There are so many cat videos on the Internet that they need their own category and some scientist are getting worried by the rate they are uploaded. Oh, and leaked government information is also bad for some people.

In the midst of Galaxy Garrison's announcement of the disappearance of the crew of the Kerberos mission an unknown hacker made its way through the firewalls of the Garrison's computer. They were basically undetectable, like an expert thief who had robbed pieces of art hundreds of times and, like a professional thief; they got what they were looking for and quickly disappeared into the night, their presence never detected by anyone.

An unknown hacker capable of cutting through the firewalls of one of the world's most powerful scientific organization would usually be a bad thing. After all, they could leak highly sensitive information that could endanger the life of hundreds of people or use that information to blackmail said organization. Luckily this hacker had other ideas.

Lisa Loud was heavily involved with the Cerberus-1 project. From the ship's design to the choosing of the landing site she had a hand in almost every part of the project. When it came time to choose the crew of the first mission to the edge of our solar system, she was unfortunately uninvolved. When the new of who would be crew got to her she got a big surprise. The first two, the scientist, were expected. Professor Holt had become a prominent face in space exploration and practically revived the space program and his son, Mathew Holt, was a rising star in the world of science.

What really surprised her was the inclusion of Lincoln Loud in the crew.

She didn't even know he was attending Space Academy!

Looking back on those days made her wish she had known earlier, maybe talked him out of the whole space exploration field entirely. But she didn't, she just looked at his scores, made him test out some space simulators and concluded that he was optimal for the mission.

When she saw the announcement of the disappearance of the mission, she was at home working on her other projects. The moment the anchor man talked about Cerberus-1 she immediately called The Garrison to know what happened.

The only answer they gave her was: "This information is classified for anyone without level 5 clearance"

She was Level 7 when she left the Garrison.

Apparently they had demoted her the moment they lost contact with the ship. The High Commands at the Garrison had decided to fire everyone who had worked at the mission under the excuse of incompetence.

If she knew any better, she would think they are trying to hide something. Which of course she immediately deduced thanks to her superior intellect.

She locked herself in her room, grabbed her modified laptop and began tearing down the firewalls of the Garrison's computer completely undetected by anyone.

The massive amount of documents which she had stolen from Garrison went from the schedule for the next space missions to the janitors work days. It would take days, maybe weeks before she found what she was looking for.

But she would persevere and she would find whatever happened to the crew.

* * *

The endless stars that covered the sky twinkled as they worked. It had took the ship six months to get from Earth to Kerberos but for Lincoln Loud it had only been a few days since they left Earth. The ship was equipped with cryo-pods specifically designed to reduce the stress of deep space travel, they still had to make sure the ship passed the moon orbit to activate the auto pilot.

He would have to thank his sister when he got home, he trained his butt off manage the various operation that went along with being the pilot but to constantly make sure that the ship didn't stir out course due to a surprise asteroid or something would probably prove to be an impossibly difficult task.

Every time something made the ship get off course, the autopilot woke him up and only let him go back into cryo-sleep when the ship got back on track. Sometimes he went days without sleep trying to make sure the ship didn't land outside the solar system.

But all of that was worth it.

They were here on the moon of the planet that stands at the very edge of the Solar System.

"Easy son" a male voice said"The ice is delicate"

That broke him out of his thought; he turned his head to the other two members of the crew.

The Holts, a father and son duo who had been chosen for the scientific aspect of the mission: cataloguing the ice that was found on the surface on the planet and sending their findings back to Earth.

"Amazing" Matt Holt, the younger of the duo said with excitement "Isn't this exciting Lincoln?!"

"You guys get a little more excited for ice than I do" he liked Matt, a smile growing on his face. He liked Matt optimism and energy; it reminded him of a more emotional version of Lisa.

"This is story in the making" Matt said with a smile.

He stifled a little laugh. Who knew that him, a little runt from Royal Woods, with ten other sister with various talents and attitudes would make here?

From here on in space, all the worries he'd ever had seemed so small, like a flicker of dust. He knelt down and began picking some rocks. Just because he is in space doesn't mean he can't bring souvenirs.

"Lincoln? Lincoln?!" once again a voice broke him out of his thoughts

"Sorry Professor, just got lost in thought" he apologized.

"No worries son, we are farther than humanity has ever been so it's normal to think about how little we are on the face of the universe" he said with a warm smile.

"Oh…that's…weirdly specific"

"I have often found myself wondering the same thing, but the feeling passes eventually" he said as he reassumed rolling a big chunk of ice back to the ship.

He stayed there for a little longer, staring at the back of the professor's head. A genius he may be but he was also very creepy.

He walked to the ship were the Matt was animatedly talked to his father

"…the microscopic bacteria frozen on this ice could hold the clues about the existence of life outside Earth" He said with a big smile. "Think about it! We could be the first people to prove the existence of aliens!"

The professor smiled brightly at that "That certainly sounds amazing!"

Lincoln couldn't help but smile at their enthusiasm. While he didn't understand all of their scientific mumbo jumbo he knew the basics: Aliens. He would be lying if he didn't dream of little alien men who got to Earth asking for our leaders. Although the probabilities of finding an alien here right now where slim, he still wished some would show up.

A big tremor shook the site they were in. They had told him about the tiny tremors that could be felt thorough the moon, but this one was hard enough that it made all of them fall to the ground. As he got up he thought he heard the Professor say something but he honestly did not hear him. His attention was somewhere else.

He learned that day that sometimes you should be careful with what you wish for.

* * *

 **WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!**

 **Chapter 2 is finally here!**

 **After a full week of things getting in the way of writing this I finally got to finish it.**

 **Hello everyone, I am trollking01 (Yes, I know. The name was supposed to be ironic).**

 **Okay, so I'm gonna be honest with you. I may not be able to update weekly like other writers, so I beg you please have some patience**

 **So yeah, that's it.**

 **Don't forget to leave a review**

 **I thank those who believe in my story and hope I can bring you more quality work.**


	3. On the House

Ever since the older siblings left their home to go out to the world and make their dreams come true, the home of the Loud Family had grown significantly quieter. There was still the occasional brawl for the remote or the last slice of pizza but not at the same level as it had once been.

But although things may change, some stay exactly the same: Lucy is still dark and dreadful, Lana still isn't afraid of getting her hands dirty and Lola was still the little princess with lots of ambitions and Lily was, of course, still adorable.

When the Cerberus-1 went missing, none of the inhabitants got informed until a very preoccupied Lori showed up at their door one day. Safe to say, they were all distressed about the whereabouts of the only son of the family. They got even more preoccupied when Lisa, the genius prodigy who had worked on the project, got into a fight with who seemed to be an answering machine and closed herself in her room.

The parents of the house quickly took control before anything out of the ordinary could happen. They made everyone go back to their rooms until more information about Cerberus-1 was unveiled. They told Lori that she was welcome on her old room but that she had to go back to the city soon if she didn't want to lose her job.

The next morning, a somber mood stretched itself through the house. The siblings tried their best to act as if nothing was wrong.

"So…" Lynn Sr. said while reading his paper "Nice weather we're having today, huh"

The silence that followed that statement was so void of sound that the dark and cold void of space seemed like a heavy metal concert in comparison. The breakfast continued in silence, none of the members of the family wanting to begin a thread of discussion.

As today was a weekend each of the individual members of the family had their own things to do and the one in charge of getting them all to their destinations was Lucy Loud. Unlike her older sibling, Lucy really didn't mind being the designated driver for five people and it usually made asking for a ride a lot easier for her younger sisters.

As Lori, Bobby, Lisa and Lily didn't have anywhere to go today; they stayed at the house with the older ones taking care of the 8 year old.

When everyone was out or in their rooms (Lisa), the rest decided to sit down on the family room. Bobby decided to watch TV, Lori called her boss and tried not to get fired and Lily began drawing on a notebook.

"No, no Mr. Brigadier …Yes Mr. Brigadier…I'll be there by tomorrow morning"

"Something wrong?"

Lori sat down next to her husband and gave a long sigh of exhaustion.

"No No, I won't get fired but I'll have to do yesterdays and tomorrows work "

"That's great, babe!"

"Yeah, but we won't be able to do anything for three whole days!"

"Don't worry babe, any day with you is a perfect day"

"Awww, Boo Boo Bear"

Lori decided to recline in her husband's arms and for a brief moments her anxiety disappeared, but there was one thing that kept nagging on her mind.

"Babe? You ok?"

"Yeah…Why do you ask?"

"I know too well to know when something is bothering you. Want to tell me what it is?"

"It's nothing, just some stupid things"

"It can't be that stupid if you are so angsty about it"

Lori shifted a little.

"It's just…"

"Just what?"

"I thought I would come back to a house in ruins, you know?"

She sat down and looked him in the eye

"That everyone would be so preoccupied about this and that they'd need me, but everyone just seems…fine. They are not wracked with sadness or preoccupied and honestly I don't know what to think"

"Babe…"  
"And it honestly makes me feel like I wasn't really needed here and that I'm the only one who is preoccupied about"

Tears were on the edge of her eyes and her breath was beginning to fasten.

"Babe….I…"

"I know it's stupid but…"

"It isn't stupid!"

"Huh?"  
"Being preoccupied for your family is one of the most natural things in the world, believe me I know. You wanting to be here just show how much of a good person you really are!"

"Bobby…"

"And I'm sure your family is preoccupied too! They are just trying to keep calm and not preoccupying you."

"But I should be the one…"

"Getting ready to go back to the city. Your family can handle themselves just fine"

"But they need me…"

"Babe, I need you…"

And with that mushy response the married couple embraced and stayed like that for a long time. Neither of them noticed the 8 year old sitting on the table but neither did the 8 year old noticed the couple embracing.

The couple began cuddling in the couch like a couple of teenagers with no sense of decency. Showing affection and pure love towards each other…

Disgusting.

While the pair of young adults was having a feelings jam on the couch, the youngest member of the family was drawing something.

The 8 year old girl was often seen painting or drawing something. People said it was talent but for her it was just fun. When people asked her how she managed to imagine such vivid and colorful scenes she just said that it came to her in her dreams.

As it is with every great artist when they came up with and idea nothing, not even the mushy lovey dopey cuddling session happening on the couch could stop her. She was a girl with an idea with a bunch of crayons and nothing could stop her.

As the hours passed and the couple felt asleep on the couch, she could feel a slight void making itself bigger on her stomach, but it would not stop her from her mission. At least, it wouldn't have if her family didn't choose that moment to enter the room.

She looked up to the clock to see it was almost 5. She mentally congratulated herself, last time it took her one whole day to finish a crayon drawing.

The matriarch of the house looked around and gave everyone in the living room a stern look. You couldn't raise 11 kids without learning a little something in how to make an authoritative voice.

"Lori and Bobby wake up, you have a long trip back to the city"

They quickly woke up and began fixing themselves for the trip. Once they had everything they need for the trip they went outside. Bobby went to start the car while Lori said her goodbyes to her family.

"Are you sure you are okay?"  
"Honey, it's true we're all a little…shaken by the news but we all have our lives and I really doubt traveling 3 hours everyday just to check on us everyday."

"But it's my responsibility to…"

"Make your own life. We'll be fine here so don't worry"

Lynn Sr. said with a paternal tone on his voice as his rough hand messed with Lori's hair, and while she gave him a mean look she didn't stop him. She turned to her siblings and gave her goodbyes as well, but stopped for a second when she got to Lily.

"Goodbye, Lily. Try not to get too distracted with your drawings"

The little girl gave her a smile and a hug which Lori returned. Before she went to the car, the little girl gave her the drawing she had been working on all day.

"For me? Thank you!"

And as she boarded the car and looked at her family as they drove away, Lori felt a little weight lift off from her shoulders. Bobby looked away from the street and smiled as he saw how relaxed his wife was. He noticed the drawing in her hands.

"Did Lily give you that?"

"Huh? Uh…yeah. I think she wanted to give me a farewell gift"

"Well, it's a pretty good farewell …what is it?"

"I…don't actually know. I think she just draws what she sees in her sleep"

"Well…it's still pretty cool."

She looked at the picture. While Lily was by all means an art genius, some of her drawings didn't make a lot of sense. Not that art made much sense either but you get the point.

In the drawing, a humanoid figure stood up with a sword in hand. It had red and green arms and a blue and yellow leg, its body was completely black and had a helmet that looked like a lion's head. On its back a pair of blue wings sprouted from its back.

"You think it means something, babe?"

"Hmmmm…"

It's true that Lily was an strangely smart gir, but…

"Nah, it's probably just some dream she got after eating too much of dad's food"

And so they went to continue on with their lives and although Lincoln was still missing, his family continued on with hope that they would see him again.

Although that reunion would not happen for a long time.

 **Author: Explain delays with the chapter.**

 **Hooooooooooooooooo boy.**

 **What can I tell you? Whenever I tried to write the chapter something came up and I had to leave for the day after. I only wrote 100 words a day and then I had to rewrite the whole chapter after I lost my hardrive.**

 **All in all it has been a shitty 2 and a half weeks.**

 **I'll try and keep a better schedule.**

 **And, one last thing, Lily's drawing is exactly what you think it is.**

.


End file.
